Have you ever woken up with the strange desire to bake something? I did one morning last week. I wanted to make something healthy and to use up some of the 50 billion plums (well, maybe not that many, but quite a few) we bought from a stand in Saskatchewan.

So, I’m actually making good on my promise to cut back the amount of sugar I eat, especially now that most of my big events are over for a while. I decided that I procrastinated for too long – always putting it off for the next day so I could continue eating whatever I wanted – not the healthiest attitude. Normally I wouldn’t care, but the numbers on the scale have been on a slow increase lately, which is something no one likes. I guess the notion of eating too much food while not doing enough exercise and not gaining any weight is a delusion after all. Drat, I was hoping that was true! 😛

Since I wasn’t wanting to eat sugar, I looked into different methods of sweetening baked goods without sugar. I do consider things like agave nectar and palm sugar as sugar as my body still reacts to then as sugar despite having a different GI index and I don’t own any stevia, so the search was on. I remember coming across a few recipes where dates were used to sweeten baked goods, so I thought, why not?

Since they don’t have any added sugar and use fairly fibrous and protein rich ingredients, this muffins are perfect for breakfast or a mid afternoon snack without the blood sugar spike. In addition, each muffin has the equivalent of half a plum in it, so that has to be good, right?

I sent some of these muffins along with Mr. Bean to his guy’s night (fortunately no turtle burgers this time around!) and they all disappeared. I’m taking that as a good sign as in my experience, five guys don’t eat eight or nine muffins if they don’t like them.

Place dates, water, vanilla extract and allspice in a small pot and simmer on medium for about 15 minutes until the water has been absorbed. Take pot off the heat and let it cool.

While the dates are boiling, whisk together flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.

Puree plums in a blender and set aside.

Toast the chopped almonds in a frying pan until toasted and fragrant. Set aside.

When dates are done, blend until a smooth mixture forms. I added an extra 2 tbsp. of water to the pot to rinse out all the leftover date bits and added it to the date mixture to help my magic bullet blend it properly.

Add the oil, eggs and plum puree to the date mixture and blend until smooth. It will become a lighter colour (I expect because of some chemical reaction between the ingredients), so don’t freak out when that happens.

Pour the liquid mixture into the dry and add the chopped plums and toasted almonds. Mix until just combined.

Spoon batter into lined muffin tins. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Let muffins sit in their pan for a few minutes before removing them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

I like the idea of a plum muffin. However, here on the other side of North America, I cannot find good plums- maybe I should visit your Saskatchewan stand 🙂 I don’t get along with agave or palm sugar very much either these days so I get really excited for recipes like this!

Very interesting recipe and I bet they are delicious muffins…and healthy too.
Thank you so much for coming by Foodie Wednesday and sharing it. Hope you will come back this week with more yummy recipes.